


Notch

by The Missus (schwarmerei1)



Series: The Paper Series [1]
Category: E.R.
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwarmerei1/pseuds/The%20Missus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kim reads Kerry’s letter<br/>Spoilers: Up to 7.22 “Rampage”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notch

**Author's Note:**

> This series was written between _Where the Heart is_ and _Rampage_ and begins when Kim gets Kerry’s letter.  Between Lori and the letter, the angst was unbearable, and I stopped work on the first series to get this all down and out.

_ And maybe it doesn’t really matter now, but I.. I wanted you to know. _

Kim turned the creamy vellum envelope over and over in her hands.  Let alone the likely contents, the paper itself was heavy, the felted fibers seared to each other by the glaze of an English hotpress.  Kerry’s pen had done more than bleed ink on it; the nib had scratched along the surface in an even thinner line within the deliberate patterns of her handwriting.  A slight curl of linen cord hung from either side of the sealed v-shaped back flap, so that Kim could hold one end and pull the other to slit the upper edge of the envelope.  

She’d had it with her when Kim found her in the hallway.  Kim had been hiding, watching her rip into Malucci.  She looked exhausted, would have even if she weren’t angry.  Kerry hadn’t had her portfolio with her, hadn’t been carrying anything, really.  But she’d had this letter between her body and her lab coat, on the chance that she’d run into Kim.  The envelope had been warm when she gave it to her.  And Kim had not known what to do.  “Okay,” she’d said, and turned.  She’d had half a thought that Kerry wouldn’t have given it to her at all.  

The letter had stayed warm until she was ready to read it, because Kimberly Legaspi had secured it on her clipboard, to be carried pressed against her chest, just as soon as she’d received it.  She hoped Kerry hadn’t noticed the bluish bite mark near her neck, either.  Just talking about Lori had felt cruel to her, let alone having to see Kerry notice something like that.  

On her way into her office, Kim stopped by the psych unit secretary’s desk, and moved the magnet beside her name over to the ‘out’ column.  “Charting,” she mumbled to the curious clerk, practically speedwalking down the hallway to the one room where she _could_ shut the damn door.  She hated Romano’s Kim-specific rules of reinstatement.  She hated him, too, for that matter.  She knew he wanted her to quit, and she would have, in a heartbeat, if she could have traded that act for the sight of twelve tattooed biker chicks beating the shit out of Rocket in an alley somewhere.  But since at last count, Kim was only friends with five tattooed biker chicks, she decided she’d best tough it out at County.  If Carter had managed to maintain through Kerry’s rules, then she could deal with Romano’s.  Of course, Carter had been _guilty_ of his crimes.... 

She not only shut her door, but locked it.  She took her phone off the hook and shut off her pager.  This morning’s tea was cold but perfectly drinkable, and she kicked off her shoes and put her stocking feet up on the side of the open file drawer of her desk.  Her office was cold, and she tucked a worn stadium blanket that doubled as her guest chair cover over her lap and legs.  

The envelope was simply marked ‘Kim.’  She turned it over, pulled the cord against the fold, and the paper made a sighing sound as it opened for her.  She pulled out a two-page handwritten letter, carefully folded in thirds.  She eased it open and began, her tea beside her as cold comfort.

_____________________

10 May 2001

Kim.  

Years from now, it will not matter to you how I felt about myself today. But perhaps it will matter to you, even then, how I felt, how I feel, about you.  Today, yesterday, since I met you: there is no apology here.

You were a force in my life, Kim.  I will never be he same, because of your love for me, and how that felt, and because of my love for you, and what that did to me.  Although I wasn’t brave enough to keep you, Kim, it wasn’t for lack of feeling.  Please know that.  It was simply... for lack of being.  

Before we are born we speak from body to body, directly.  And then later, we come to know how separate we truly are, we wail for that somatic conversation until we learn words.  Most people never are blessed with that sensation again, Kim, but you blessed me.  You gave me that perfection back again in great bounds of happiness.  My days and nights in your arms, Kim; they shimmered, were incandescent.  I will never be finished with my gratitude for that.

Your words, Kim, you held them out to me like a body of their own, and I loved them, loved you for giving them to me, words for what I felt for you, words for who I am.  I know who I am now Kim, and I only know that because you held me safely between your own body and the body of your words, until I felt you like you were meant to be felt.  I did, Kim, feel you.  

You are the most remarkable woman I have ever known.  You moved things in me that I never knew were liquid.  Your generous touch, your passion, your protection, your beauty: Kim, I never, never knew how it could be.  I will never stop missing you, never stop loving you.  

Whatever woman stands beside me in my later life, Kim, her place will always have a bit of your scent left in it for me.  And only you and I will know.  You opened me, Kim, to see how what I wanted was puddled around me already, just waiting to receive me.  Me, the unreceivable.  

Your touch was deep, Kim... deep and welcome.  You eased my heart as surely as I broke yours, and what you saw in me that made you do it, I’ll be looking to take care of that for the rest of my life.  Your time, your attention, your love and your power, Kim; none of them were wasted, I promise you.  I promise you.

Kerry.

_____________________

Kim’s hand covered the notch of her throat as she re-read Kerry’s words to her.  She was acutely aware of an urge to scream, though from which exact emotion she did not know.  Her skin was flushed and clammy; she reached for her tea but the strong taste of it gagged her.  Water, she needed water.  

She picked a more or less clean cup from the stash in her drawer and padded to her door in her socks.  For a five-step trip across the hall, she would stay comfortable.  She acquiesced to her inner professional and left her stadium blanket on her chair.

She held her hand against the wall for support as she filled her tumbler at the fountain.  Her blood was loud in her ears and she was not at all certain of her balance.  

“Kim?”  

‘Oh, shit,’ Kim registered, ‘Don *and* Carl...’

Anspaugh and DeRaad were headed down the hallway, side by side.  Kim flashed what she hoped was a very competent and nonthreatening smile at them and crossed back to her office.  Donald Anspaugh took three quick steps to intercept her closing door in plenty of time.  “Up for a visit, Dr. Legaspi?” he cheerfully asked her.  When he saw her face, though, he sobered.  “Kim, are you okay?”  

She nodded, “Mmhm.”  A father for too many years, he didn’t buy her line.  Steering her to her own chair with a warm hand on the small of her back, he sat her down on her blanket and tucked it around her himself.  He reached behind him for the guest chair and settled into it on her side of the desk.  

“What happened, Kim?”

Kim thought for a moment about what single sentence she could say... the absurdity of her situation caught up with her all at once and she began to laugh and weep at the same time.  DeRaad was glancing in from the door; Don waved him off with the universal ‘close-the-door-thank-you’ gesture.  Kim began to hiccup.  

“Kim, honey, what is it?”  He rubbed her hands together within his own; she looked a little shocky.  “Deep breaths...”  Kim’s breathing began to creep back to normal as she complied.  “Kim, did Romano do something to you?”

Kim shook her head.  “N-mhm.”  Anspaugh let go her hands; she seemed more herself, if pale.  He looked disapprovingly at her streaky water glass.  “You need a little tea, I think,” and he picked up her morning’s teacup from her desk.  Kim had prudently left the letter itself face down when she left for water, but the envelope was face up by her mug.  Donald recognized the writing right away.  Ah... he had been right to prescribe fresh tea, he thought to himself.

He patted Kim’s knee.  “I’ll be right back with some for both of us,” he said, and left her door shut when he went behind the unit desk for fresh bags and hot water.  In his absence, Kim carefully refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope.  She put the cream-colored packet safely inside her drawer.

Anspaugh returned with their mugs, closing the door again to protect a disheveled Kim’s privacy.  “Mint,” he declared.  “Thanks,” she said shyly.  Her color was a bit improved, Donald noted.  She hiccupped with a squeak.  “Not through crying?” he asked as she did.  She sounded less bitter than she felt when she replied, “I don’t suppose I’ll be through with that anytime soon, actually.”

The pause between them became oppressive.  He decided to call her out.  “Kerry?”  The one word she did not want to hear was the one word Don chose.  Kim held her mug to warm her freezing fingers and only nodded.  “Is it all over the hospital?”  She braced for his answer.  He shook his head no.  “No...no, I only know because I’ve known Kerry for so long and I know when she’s hiding something.  I’d just never seen her hiding something good before.  And then of course at the meeting, she fell apart because you were in danger, Kim.  I’d never seen anything like it...”  Kim was about to bitterly agree when Don finished his sentence.  “... so of course I knew then that she did love you.  I said what I said to you in front of her, hoping she would come to me, but she never did.”  Kim’s surprised expression went unnoticed by the older man, as she was still rather pale.

“It wasn’t hard to see the happy change in you, Kim.  Or the unhappy one, either, after she fell apart in that sham of a meeting.”  Kim gave an admissive raise of one eyebrow, nodding.  She sipped.

Donald decided to lay all the cards on the table.  “She wrote you?”  He pointed to the space where Kerry’s letter had been.  Kim nodded mutely.  “I can tell you, Kim, though I hardly can claim a big dose of perspective here, I realize... that if you’ve got even the slightest inclination toward working this through with her you might be amazed at what that woman can accomplish.  She’s a force of nature, Kim.”  Kim blinked rapidly at his choice of phrasing.  “And she’s a formidable mess, too.  Just the thing for a brilliant analyst like yourself.  Job security for sure.”  He smiled, and Kim tried to.  

Don stood to leave, but took her hand and spoke seriously to her first.  “Kim, I can’t tell you anything about love, really: I have never done more than enjoy it.  But I know loss, Kim, and it would cause me great sorrow to see you volunteer to carry that home today.  Talk to her, Kim, if you haven’t already.  There must be something to talk over if you can be this thrown by a letter.”

Kim had a flashing urge to share it with him, have Don analyze it for a sincerity quotient, score it against some scale that would tell her what to do.  Instead, she nodded.  What more could it possibly hurt if they talked?   He patted her head like her father once had.  “Call me if you want to have lunch this week, Kim, and finish your tea.”  “Okay,” Kim said threadily.  “I will.”  
  
  



End file.
